The Rise and Fall of WCW (Disc One)
by J.D. Dunn
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Jim Crockett Promotions: Jim Crockett Sr. moved to Charlotte to run the NWA territory there and built a mini-empire around wrestling, boxing and the Globetrotters. When he died in the early 1970s, his boys Jim Jr. and David took over and moved things in a new direction.
George Championship Wrestling: Ted Turner was such a fan of wrestling that he cleared two hours each week on burgeoning TBS. This led to the creation of big stars as TBS was seen in the major TV markets in the company. Madison Square Garden was still the Mecca, but Charlotte wasn’t far behind.
Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling: Mid-Atlantic acted as a booking agent for their stars, sending them out to places like St. Louis. Because Crockett started doing big shows like Starrcade, the talent left the smaller territories, drying up several regions.
Black Saturday: Vince McMahon bought out the time on Georgia Championship Wrestling and knock off Jim Crockett in one fell swoop. The more cartoonish WWF went over like a lead balloon down south, though. Vince says there were some political machinations, leading to a falling out between Vince and Ted Turner. Crockett wound up paying double to get back on the network. David jokes that they actually wound up paying for WrestleMania.
The Expansion: Crockett got rolling again thanks to the expansion of cable. That led to bigger crowds, bigger arenas, and bigger names. One of those names was Magnum T.A.. Magnum was supposed to be Crockett’s version of Hulk Hogan. Instead, his career was tragically ended in a car accident.
Crockett Sells to Turner: Crockett was doing insane business at the time, in two senses of the word. They were selling out big cities, but they weren’t seeing the revenue that they were shelling out. David Crockett didn’t want to sell, but by then it was either sell to Turner or send the family into financial collapse. Turner loved wrestling, but he didn’t run it himself, instead putting a series of jackasses with business degrees in charge of everything.
Greatest Talent in the World: Turner had so much money that he was able to solidify the talent pool, though. Everyone who was there agrees that the in-ring product was better than the WWF. We see clips of Flair vs. Magnum and Flair vs. Steamboat. Michael Hayes says that the progress in the ring was stunted by behind-the-scenes idiocy.
New Management: Jim Herd was a decent hand in business management, but he tried to move in to creative decisions. That led to Ole Anderson as a booker. Ole was, let’s say, “unyielding.” He refused to change with the times. Jim Ross and Michael Hayes agree that Ole was a victim of the revolving door of bookers. Once he started getting traction, they got rid of him. That led to Kip Frey and then Dusty Rhodes again. People were getting guaranteed contracts – whether they deserved it or not. More importantly, Turner was allowing wrestlers creative control. Turner’s people didn’t think wrestlers were smart enough to run a wrestling show, so they had business and technical people run the show.
Bill Watts Era: Watts was so successful back in the 1980s, it just made sense that they gave him a shot at running the show. Watts was the one guy who had the will to back down the bean-counters. He ruled with an iron fist, though, but the financial culture was already against him. Guys got paid whether they produced or not, and his attempts to force better in-ring production alienated people. He eventually told Turner’s people to go to hell. Turner’s people decided they’d had it with actual wrestlers running the show.
Bill Shaw Hires Eric Bischoff: Bill Shaw was one of the few people who was smart enough to know he had no clue what he was doing, so he hired Bischoff. Bischoff was at least willing to listen to ideas, and he was able to get Shaw to unleash Turner’s purse strings for guys like Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. Mike Graham takes credit for the Orlando tapings, but the downside isn’t brought up. Graham also says he was the one who suggested phasing out the Clash of the Champions in favor of more PPVs.
Hulk Hogan Arrives: Even Turner’s people knew the name Hulk Hogan, so they suddenly had an interest in getting behind WCW once again. WCW put on the match that the WWF failed to do when they had the chance – Flair vs. Hogan. WCW now had star power.
Nitro Debuts: With the addition of Hogan came more clout for Bischoff. Bischoff suggested moving in to primetime to compete with Vince. WCW Monday Nitro was born (not to be confused with Sunday Nitro, TNT’s coverage of the NFL). Bischoff clandestinely signed Luger away from the WWF, had Alundra Blayze trash the WWF Women’s Title, and started revealing the results of taped WWF shows.
nWo: Scott Hall says he was turned down for a guaranteed contract in the WWF, so he jumped to WCW. Big Show says Hall and Nash’s contracts stated that they had to be the highest paid guys there. Kevin Sullivan says WCW intentionally wanted it to look like Razor Ramon and Diesel were still working for the WWF. That led to a lawsuit by the WWF which went on for years. When Hogan betrayed WCW to join the nWo, that was the thing that put them over the top. WCW won the ratings battle for a year and a half. The original plan was for the nWo to be perceived as its own company.
Cruiserweights: Chris Jericho says that the people came for the nWo and stayed for the cruiserweights. Because the WWF established what wrestling culture was, when Bischoff went in the opposite direction, it represented counter-culture.
Goldberg: Goldberg was all set to go to the WWF, but he called Bischoff for an eleventh-hour offer and wound up going to the Power Plant instead. Sullivan says he handpicked Hugh Morrus to be Goldberg’s designated gerbil. That led to him demolishing everyone in his path, including Hulk Hogan.
WCW Ratings Champ: WCW was on top for so long that they stopped thinking long-term. Harvey Schiller says the Turner brass loved the money WCW was bringing in. They just wanted to get rid of the pesky wrestling. Did You Know: Nitro was the #1 wrestling show for 84 straight weeks among white males aged 18-35 named Skip?
Celebrities: Diamond Dallas Page was at a Jazz game. He saw Karl Malone. Their eyes met. Page shrugged off his flop sweat and asked Karl out. “You know, if you’re not doing anything later… maybe you wanna make a mockery out of wrestling with me? You know, no pressure.” Actually, that wasn’t so bad, but it led to Hogan & Bischoff “taking over” The Tonight Show, which then led to Jay Leno getting in the ring. Jim Ross says you have to use a celebrity the right way… like hyping “The Summerfest.” Malenko says using guys like Rodman, Malone and Leno was good for the short term, but it kept guys like him stagnant.
Goldberg vs. Hogan: Goldberg steamrolled everyone, earning a title shot against Hogan. Goldberg found out he was getting the shot when he watched Thunder>. Both Goldberg and Ross say it was silly to put it on free TV.
Mistakes Begin: We see the end of Halloween Havoc ’98 as the Page vs. Goldberg match begins only to get cut off when the show ran over. Kevin Nash was put in charge of booking and immediately put himself over. Goldberg says it’s stupid to have the inmates run the asylum. Immediately after came the “fingerpoke of doom.” The result was to cut Goldberg’s legs out from under him. “The Giant” was told he wasn’t over enough deserve a raise. Chris Jericho says he was there to be a workhorse, but they didn’t want him to get over.
Vince Russo: WCW fell so far that they signed the guy they thought was responsible for the WWF’s success. No one who was in wrestling was fooled by Russo, but the Turner people thought he was a genius. This led to David Arquette as the WCW Champion. Since it was Russo, Arquette SWERVED US ALL by turning heel. It also led to the Jarrett vs. Hogan debacle that was a worked-shoot-shoot-work-shoot. Mike Graham buries Jeff Jarrett as a non-draw who thought he was bigger than Hulk Hogan. It became a playpen for egos instead of a business.
A Corporate Merger: In possibly the worst big business move in the history of America up to that point, Time Warner merged with AOL. The new conglomerate shopped WCW around. There was a deal with Fusient that fell through. When that was done, Vince stepped in and bought out his worst enemy.
McMahon Buys WCW: In what should have been the biggest money angle in the history of wrestling, Shane McMahon bought WCW out from under Vince. Flair says it should have been shut down a year earlier because it was an embarrassment. Vince says it wasn’t an ego boost to buy them out, just business as usual. Jericho says he wished he knew how much Vince was going to buy it for because he would have put in a bid. Me too. That’s less than the average price of a house here (back then, not now).
Legacy of WCW: Despite the acrimony in the late 1990s, most people still have fond memories of WCW and the NWA. It actually helped make the WWF a better company too, both creatively and financially.
Special Features:
Lost in Cleveland: According to Dusty, Ole Anderson hated Cactus Jack and was going to get rid of him if Dusty didn’t come up with something for him. Dusty wrote a “mini-movie” in which Cactus Jack got amnesia after a Vader powerbomb and went to live with hobos in Cleveland. At least Dusty had fun with it.
Bill Watts Defends Himself: Watts says he did not get fired and calls the rumors of racism “a crock of shit.” He points to Ernie Ladd & the JYD as proof. Things were getting stirred up against him, though, so he walked away.
Spam Man: Harvey Schiller says they test marketed personalities and since Hormel was a sponsor, they thought about having a “Spam Man” character. Even Spam looked down on wrestling, though, so they killed the character. Seriously, Spam said their customers operated at “a different economic level” than wrestling fans. Suck on that one.
The Origins of Goldberg: Goldberg says it was a lot of little things that helped him be successful. Goldberg wanted to be called “the Hybrid,” but it was copyrighted. WCW decided to call him “Goldberg,” above his objections. Goldberg was wrestling Manny Fernandez, and they told him his finisher had to be impactful. That led to the Spear. He took the Jackhammer from Dean Malenko. “Who’s Next?” came to him when the waitress asked that question at a restaurant. He says his look wasn’t patterned after Steve Austin, but it is funny how their stories run parallel. Steve Austin didn’t want to be called Steve Austin. He took his finisher from and American who wrestled in Japan. His nickname occurred to him when his wife told him to drink his tea before it got “Stone Cold.” Life is funny sometimes.
Bischoff Gives Away Raw Results: Bischoff refuses to apologize for it but he says it was a lousy thing to do. Vince says that crossed a line. It backfired when they gave away the Foley result only to have people turn the channel to see that match (and it was a good decision too because that was a big moment).
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